Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms The Analogue Experience

Those speakers look amazing!
This is the Linn approach to the modern aesthetic..



I'd love to have that fabric on the ELS..... they remind me of the 1960s light shows used by bands...
Caroline's view is rather the reverse!

I wonder about this. Music or indeed speech recorded direct from the mic and compressed losslessly is technically much nearer the true sound, so I guess when you say you prefer vinyl you are saying you prefer the distortions produced by pressing plastic and replaying using a vibrating stylus. Perfectly reasonable thing to do - personal taste matters hugely in music.

That said, I am not a hi fi buff being happy to listen to mp3 tracks via earbuds down at the gym. And I have never believed in "old". The world moves on, everything gets better, technology triumphs whilst old is just that - old.

Interesting stuff, thanks for sharing your experiences. In times past I too was keen to upgrade my kit, never got beyond a Cambridge CD player, Arcam Alfa amp and Linn Stone, speakers, My Bro in law had a pair of Linn Isobarik with a valve pre-amp and of course a Linn plater of sorts with all the attendant then top end kit... He same age as myself bought an LP every weekend from age 14, and when CD`s came along he was buying up all the LP`s almost by the box load for not much money, thus ended up with a loft full of vinyl, though the Isobarik`s were the thing that really impressed given the amount of air they are bound to shift when a big base not comes into play...?

For at least seven years now I have forgotten what the sound of silence might be, having spent way too much time in close company with aircraft, two smoke race m/cycles and cars of all sorts, not forgetting my noisy old Morgan... Though just put that down to a life well lived, and enjoyed tinnitus is no big deal compared to that which many baby boomers have to live with.. On the plus side I have no thoughts of spending lumps of cash on Hi Fi..

What is the true sound though? A recording studio is a musically "sterile" environment, nothing ever sounds good IMHO because it's not what our ears expect to hear! It's great for the engineers though, they can separate instruments and have minimal distortion. The "distortion" is added later artificially. I've recorded in a studio around 40 or 50 times and have seldom enjoyed the sound achieved during or after the recording because it never sounds as good as it does in a live, accoustic situation. It can only ever be a representation of your music played in an unnatural environment.

Wherever we listen to live or recorded music there will always be an external source influencing the sound, unless of course you live in a recording studio! So as I see (or hear) it having a pure sound is useful to nobody apart from the recording engineer. Therefore the best hi-fi system for me is the one that most accurately recreates the sound and feeling I get in an accoustic situation.

A very good point. I am an absolute beginner at the art of recording, but even with my pretty simple set-up it's entirely possible to engineer an entirely different sound and feel to the mix than that which was present when recorded - not least because of the huge range of post-processing plug-ins like reverb and echo that can be applied. You can sit and play an acoustic guitar in my studio and 5 minutes later I can make it sound like it was played in a cathedral.

The best any Hi-Fi reproduction equipment can do is to allow the listener to believe that what they are hearing is what the recording engineer wanted them to hear. The better the equipment, the easier it is for the listener to make that leap of faith.

Errmmm ... hopefully they'll be hearing what the musicians wanted them to hear!! .... pesky recording engineers getting ideas above their station!! 😁


K

Yes, one would hope the engineer actually talks to the band about what they want. I remember on the Dark Side of the Moon documentary, it was openly acknowledged by the members of Pink Floyd that the engineering of Alan Parsons was key to getting the right sound on the album.

Some musicians are less aware than others, of course. I did have one guy say to me "Oh, is that what I sound like?" in a slightly disappointed voice when he heard the raw cut. Then, once I'd rebalanced stuff, added a bit of reverb to the voice and compression to his guitar, said "Ah, that's better!"

What I hear in my head as a performer is not the same as that which comes out of the stage monitor, nor what the audience hear sat listening to the PA, I rely on the sound guy to get something that sounds decent in the environment. The same is pretty much true of the engineer's job, translating the artist's intent to the final product.

True sound? There are so many different types of recording though. A typical classical recording is trying to supply the sound of a live orchestra, for instance. But a typical multitracied pop recording isn't doing that at all. All the soundstage illusion is constructed by the engineer; placing of instruments etc.
But if we accept that the master is the final output of an artist/engineer combined effort, then surely the flatter the response of the home reproduction equipment the better, if you don't want to stray far from that master. My old Quad 303 had a form of tone controls, but they weren't designed for the listener's taste but to adjust for the the listening room.

Howard, you say "everything gets better, technology triumphs" but I thoroughly disagree. The mp3s you mention followed directly from CD. In every way from cursory listening to detailed measurements, they are showably worse. Convenience won out, not audibility.
It's rather like the chap I was once with who was a posture expert. He said, remember that any chair you sit on in a public venue has been designed to fold and/or stack efficiently, not to hold you properly.

Nick

Perfect!